January 11, 2011

Illinois death penalty ban sent to Gov. Pat Quinn

By Todd Wilson and Ray Long at 11:05 a.m.; last updated at 3:16 p.m. with roll call links

SPRINGFIELD --- A historic measure to abolish the death penalty in Illinois passed the state Senate today after nearly two hours of impassioned debate.

The ban on executions goes to Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who must sign the legislation for it to become law. During last fall's campaign, Quinn said he supports "capital punishment when applied carefully and fairly," but also backs the 10-year-old moratorium on executions. (See Question 4 here.)

The Senate voted 32-25 to approve the ban, with two members voting present. The measure passed the House last week.

You can see how your state senator voted today by clicking here. You can see how your House member voted last week by clicking here.

Sponsoring Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, urged his colleagues to “join the civilized world” and end the death penalty in Illinois.

Raoul spoke of how authorities were certain when they prosecuted Jerry Hobbs and Kevin Fox for killing their own little girls. Both confessed under coercion and both were exonerated by DNA evidence. The senator spoke of is 10-year-old daughter and how he could not imagine what a wrongly accused father would go through.

Illinois “ought to be embarrassed” by its track record of wrongful convictions, Raoul said, “because if an execution were to take place, it takes place in the name of the people of Illinois.”

Sen. John Millner, R-Carol Stream, a former Elmhurst police chief with experience of interviewing more than 1,000 defendants, called for making more reforms to the system before eliminating the death penalty. He also called for more training of police officers, including how to avoid false confessions.

Sen. Willie Delgado, D-Chicago, a former parole agent, cited how he worked in the attorney general’s office when the wrongful convictions of Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were examined.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the system is broken,” Delgado said. He maintained “death is too good for some folks” and said they should be allowed to sit in prison for natural life, where they can “rot and think about what they have done.”

Sen. Kirk Dillard, a Hinsdale Republican who worked on death penalty reforms now in place, said the people of his district believe in executions for mass murderers and killers of police, prison guards and children.

“I think there’s still a place for the death penalty for the worst of the worst of our society,” Dillard said.

Dillard and Sen. Bill Haine, an Alton Democrat and former Madison County state’s attorney, called for putting the question before Illinois citizens.

But Sen. Toi Hutchinson, D-Olympia Fields, said lawmakers are elected to make the tough decisions, and she called on colleagues said Illinois should break company with Afghanistan, China, Iran, Iraq, Congo, Saudi Arabia and other countries that allow the death penalty.

“We’re here because we’ve seen countless examples of the fact that the system has failed,” Hutchinson said. “This question is not about the people who we know did it. It’s about the people who were convicted who didn’t. It’s about our system of justice is actually predicated upon the protection of the innocent and executing one innocent person is too high a price to pay.”

Sen. Dan Duffy, R-Lake Barrington, argued that 20 people sent to Death Row in Illinois have been exonerated and the taxpayer costs have been too great to be left with an ineffective and expensive use of scarce resources.

“What we have learned after all this time is that the system cannot be fixed,” Duffy said.

Sen. Jeff Schoenberg, D-Evanston, said he has long prayed over the death penalty issue but that the system in Illinois “is not marginally flawed. It is irretrievable broken.”

Posted earlier...

The action comes 10 years after then-Gov. George Ryan placed a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois following revelations that several people sent to Death Row were later exonerated.

Quinn has not said whether he would sign the ban, but during last year's campaign said the moratorium should stay in place to see whether reforms have worked.

Gordon “Randy” Steidl, who spent 17 years in prison, including 12 on Death Row, after he was wrongfully convicted of a 1986 double-murder, pleaded with the committee to end a death penalty system in Illinois that could have had him executed.

"How can you possibly give the power of life and death to a prosecutor, who even if he does everything correctly, there's still that possibility that you’re going to strap an innocent person to a gurney?” Steidl said. “And we know we have in this country, we know we have executed innocent people in the past. The problem is, after they’re executed, the state no longer cares. The evidence is there, we have an alternative, and that's life without parole and we do not risk the possiibility of executing an innocent person. Because you know sooner or later if we have this system we will."

The panel voted in favor of the proposal despite concerns raised by opponents who cited the need for the death penalty to be in place. They pointed to the shooting of a congresswoman in Arizona over the weekend and murder of six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. The vote in Springfield also comes against the backdrop of six Chicago policemen killed over the last year.

Sen. William Haine, a former Madison County state’s attorney, argued fervently to keep the death penalty in place.

"To call for perfection necessarily involves speculation about a future faulty case.” Haine argued. “We have in our hands 15 cases of the worst on Death Row now. … Fifteen muderers, that's not speculation. The people of Illinois should be a part of this and we should not be removing what they believe is justice."

Sponsoring Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, said he has confidence that Quinn will come around and sign the bill once he hears from Steidl and other wrongfully convicted former Death Row inmates.

Outside of the hearing room, Raoul choked up and his eyes welled up as he talked about the historic breadth of the legislation, particularly in a state where unethical means have been used to squeeze defendants into false confessions.

“It’s an emotional debate,” Raoul said, his voice breaking as he took several seconds to gather himself. “I talk to my kids and their friends in their school about this. My kids attend Catholic school, and they get their values-based education, and they understand it better than some adults do.”

Thirty-five states now have the death penalty, and Illinois would become the 16th state to not have the death penalty if Illinois approved abolishing it. Three other states — New York, New Jersey and New Mexico — have eliminated the death penalty in recent years, according to the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Before last week, no abolition legislation had passed either house in Illinois since executions were reinstated in 1977. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down death penalty guidelines in 40 states, including Illinois, in 1972.

Support for abolishing executions in Illinois has grown since Ryan declared the moratorium. His action followed a Tribune series that pointed out flaws and inequities in the prosecution and defense of Illinoisans facing a death sentence and the exoneration of several people placed on Death Row.

Illinois followed up with a number of steps to reform the death penalty process, including taping interrogations under a proposal forged by President Barack Obama when he served in the Illinois Senate. More money was made available to help provide resources to beef up the defense of alleged offenders in death penalty cases, but the millions of dollars being spent raised additional questions.

Only days before he left office in January 2003, Ryan granted clemency to 164 Death Row inmates even though sources on the Illinois Prisoner Review Board said the panel recommended clemency for no more than 10.

Comments

First of all, it's AN historic measure...
Second, Illinois has a long standing habit of railroading innocent people through their prison system and have, especially in the past 3 years, consistently overturned convictions of innocent people on death row. This is a good idea from that perspective. No one should have to DIE because of corruption and incompetency - in prison or otherwise.

They just sent the message to all the gangbangers it is not only open season on the general public but police officers too. These jerks in Springfield will do anything for a few more votes in the inter city.

Keep the death penalty available. The recent murders have shocked us all and now some people want to get rid of capital punishment, saying it doesn't help. It should be available for heinous crimes. When you administer capital punishment to a murderer one thing is for certain. He/she won't be repeating the crime. If capital punishment is abolished then there will be those who will oppose life without parole saying it is cruel and unusual punishment.

Okay and albeit the Illinios justice system has made mistakes. Now we are in the era of DNA. With DNA, mistakes on convictions have plummetted. With the kind of crimes we have in Illinois and the rest of the country, we have to have the death penalty.

Again this is prime example of how our state has forgotten the rights of the victim.

Christian Soldier - the death penalty, when administered by the government, is moral. The commandment "Thou Shall not Kill" is directed to people reacting to other people--not to how governments should determine what punishments should be in place for various crimes.

Just because we may have innocent people on death row does not mean that the death penalty should be eliminated--the prosecuting needs fixed, not the punishment.

If you are a Catholic and you are opposed to abortion because of the church's teachings, but you support the death penalty, you are either ignorant of your own church's teachings or you are a false Catholic.

For those who are supporters of the death penalty, I'd only add that government sanctioned punishment of this magnitude does little to dissuade criminals. In fact, it perpetuates the belief that murder is okay as a mode of "payback".

I'm not at all surprised that most Americans are in favor of the death penalty. It's a position that's easily justified. I just hope that we as a nation find that killing someone should never be okay. At any level or for whatever reason.

I support the death penalty, but in Illinois we have to get it RIGHT. We haven't, and sadly, too much history proves the point. Once you've made a mistake, it cannot be undone. And to say "oh well, we can't be perfect" is fine - if you're not the one being executed! It HAS to be "perfect" or we have to consider alternatives.

We spend far, far too much time worrying about 'social justice' and fairness, and not nearly enough about creating incentives for good behavior and disincentives for antisocial acts. Grave crimes where there is utterly no doubt as to the perpetrator's identity nor the heinousness of the crime shuld be fast tracked in the justice system and execution carried out within a fortnight.

Death Penalty does not work, and is immoral. Killing a person who killed others, will not bring back those people who were killed or bring justice and peace to those who suffer. Killing an innocent person in prison, is murder who to those who were involved. Make laws for prison time, fit those who commit crimes. More people spend more time in prison for drug use, than those who sell drugs or commit murder. Let God do justice on judgment day.

good riddance. I'm very much against the death penalty, but at the same time, we need to make our prisons a bit more arduous for those who will never see the light of day and a bit more successful on reforming those who ordinarily would treat it as a second home.

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